Western Digital 500GB WD Black Performance Internal Hard Drive HDD - 7200 RPM, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64 MB Cache, 3.5" - WD5003AZEX

WD Is always my favorite HDD going back years!, this not only has amazing transfer speeds thanks to the SATA III (6 Gb/s Speeds) technology-but also the WD Cavier BLACK EDITION 500GB with an amazing super fast 64MB Cache makes this the BEST HDD (Leaving SSD's Out Of This) in the market today! Coming in many ranges from the 500GB to the 1TB+ (BLUE & BLACK 64 MB CACHE DRIVES) his is by far the best choice for any PC ENTHUSIAST / GAMER for their Backup Storage & Installs of their GAMES in the market today! (( OF COURSE THIS IS ONLY BASED ON MY EXPERIENCE WITH WD PRODUCTS, & HOW I FEEL THE OVERALL QUALITY, DURABILITY & TECHNOLOGY THEY'VE IMPLIMENTED INTO THEIR HIGH LINE DRIVES OR ANY DRIVE I'VE OWNED FOR THAT MATTER AND TOO COMPARED TO THE MANY OTHER BRANDS, I.e SEAGATE, IVE NEVER HAD WD HDD FAIL DUE TO THE AMOUNT OF USE AND STRESS I PUT ON MY DRIVES DUE TO GAMING, ETC. IN THE LONG RUN THE FAIL RATE IS SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER THAN ALL OTHER BRANDS IVE USED IN TERMS OF THEIR LONGEVITY & LIFESPAN)) - Also keep in mind even the lower end 320GB 16MB Cache BLUE models, even GREEN are all just great products regardless., It simply depends on how you use your HDD's (For me simply for Backing UP & Even INSTALL OF MY GAMES ON THE BLUE/BLACK 64 MB CACHE MODELS, But even the lower end models are still my choice for backup,,media, cloning, image backups and more.) - They come typically in a 8-16, 32,64MB Cache in this CAVIAR Models & in Many Ranges of DRIVE SIZES, the GREEN, BLUE & BLACK Models but yet all reliable and some!. So if your needing a DRIVE that's highly dependable, easy to work with and has a whole lot of WD Programs then WD should be the @1 Choice / Consideration for your HDD Needs Overall! I typically get the 350-500 (NEW) GB Base Models like these for backups, but even better is the the amazing quality their BLUE/BLACK 64MB Cache Models I use that too are at GREAT Prices and just PERFECT for all your GAMING related needs in conjunction with a good SSD drive to install your OS too, Simply put for the quality, durability, and range of Drive options it simply boils down for me to the PRICE to PERFORMANCE Value FACTOR when going with my WD HDD's.. Ill continue to be a loyal customer of WD Products for all my Drive needs (SSD is a different story) - I also must mention the expedited and fast shipping that AMAZON always delivers on. Thanx again and I hope this is helpful for anyone looking for Hard Drive options. Jason C (UTAH)

Greetings- I own and operate a one-man computer support company in a small town. Whenever customers' hard drives need replacing, WD Caviar and Scorpio (2.5") Black drives are all I use. I don't even give the customer the option, I just order this for them and install, as these have been very dependable and trouble free, and will probably outlast the computer, these days. Quality has been excellent. The only WD drive I have had go bad out of the box was a Caviar Blue (which WD warranted), and that was the last Blue I ordered, staying with the Black. It just works (and, if it doesn't, there's a 5-year warranty). A couple of tips: There are freeware utilities out there (ala Crystal Disk Info) that will read the SMART data from a hard drive and give you a calculated guess as to the health of your drive: Good, Caution, Failing, etc. If I ever get a "Caution" status, I just replace the drive - I don't fool around with these things. Maybe it runs for a year or two, or is heading south rapidly, you just don't know, so why risk it and wind up in a data recovery situation. It's not a question of "if" hard drives will fail, but "when". They all fail eventually. I'll just grab a WD Black and clone the old to new while I still have a somewhat healthy old drive. Another thing is that crashes and hard shutdowns/restarts can impact a drive negatively, causing it to fail prematurely. So keep that in mind if you have a drive go out sooner than expected. Just send it back and replace it if it's under warranty. If you have to order a replacement to get up and running while your old drive is being warranted, there's a bright side to having an extra drive. You can implement a backup scheme where you clone drives and swap them out on a monthly or other schedule, and this way you have a backup drive with all your data that can be taken offsite. This is just one way to put it to use, and there are others. The above accounts are based on my years of real world experience, and your experience may be different. But there you go. Hope this is useful.

Have bought many of these drives (owner of a large computer repair shop) and have never gotten a bad one. They work well and have a longer warranty than most others.

I repair laptop PCs for a living, and this is absolutely my "go to" hard drive for customers that don't want a solid-state drive. The Western Digital Black is simply the benchmark hard drive -- perhaps not perfect -- but quiet, efficient, trouble-free, and as fast and reliable as a mechanical 2.5" drive gets. In my experience, the Western Digital Black drives last longer than some others, and much longer than that "H" brand IBM and Lenovo like to partner with. At the prices Amazon charges and at the speed they ship them, there's truly no better choice out there. A word to the wise: Laptop hard drives typically only last between 4 and 7 years. When they go -- and I guarantee they will -- they can go suddenly, and they WILL take your data with them. No matter what kind of drive you use, KEEP A CURRENT BACKUP. You've been warned.

These days I am not even sure why I am buying mechanical HDD anymore but every situation is diferent for the application needs to match the user which is why I had purchased a mechanical vs SSD. These being the Black series are pretty good for the 64mb cache does help in speeding things up a bit so for the application where I was using this, this worked out perfectly and hopes that this will last for many years to come. Those that are thinking why should I change the HDD even thought the computer is working? well nothing last for ever for ideally about 5yrs or so you needs to change to prevent mechanical failure unless you have an excellent back-up system.

I'll begin by saying that I gave up being a computer nerd a couple of decades ago, so all I ask of a device is that it work properly with reliability and reasonable speed. I bought this drive in July, 2015 to replace a dying HD in an aging Windows XP machine that I wanted to keep running, as it holds software I have no intention of replacing in new versions costing thousands of dollars. This drive installed without incident, the OS climbed aboard, backups restored, and I'm a happy guy. Unlike reports from earlier years, this drive is not noisy at all. I can't hear it seek. It's been in flawless operation for nine months now. No complaints at all. Remembering the days when we spent $800 for 5 megabytes--mega, not giga--of HD, this is a great ride.

Fast shipping great product.One hundred percent satisfied.I will recommend this to all my friends and family.Thanks again.Keep up the good work

The first drive I ordered failed when installing Windows 7. I purchased this drive to create a dual boot system for Win XP and Win 7 with each on their own hard drive. During the install of Windows 7, it was taking extremely long and eventually failed due to drive errors. Using WD diagnostics, it failed the S.M.A.R.T test so I contacted Amazon and they immediately shipped a replacement drive to me along with a return shipping label. The replacement drive is working just fine and Windows 7 installation was done in less then 15 minutes. I have owned many WD drives over the past years with no problems. The current drive I have with WinXP is a WD drive and is 5 years old now with no problems. The reason I purchased this WD drive is because of the 5 year warranty and past satisfaction. Any electronic item can be DOA (dead on arrival), but Amazon was great and sent me the replacement drive with 2-day shipping.

Kurz zum Anfang: Versand super! Sonntag Abend bestellt und Dienstag mittag war sie da. Und was ich sehr begrüße: Die Verpackung. In den Karton hätten bestimmt 10 Festpaltten reingepasst aber war komplett mit Luftkissen ausgefüllt um die eine Platte zu schützen. Also so wünsch ich mir das für immer :-) Zur Platte selbst: Ich hab die Platte jetzt 2 Tage im Einsatz und bin bis jetzt begeistert! Sie ist soweit super leise ausser beim starten des PC's. Da hört man sie nur ganz kurz anlaufen. Aber sonst höre ich wirklich nichts von ihr im Betrieb. Auf der Platte habe ich mein Windows und Spiele installiert (Gaming-PC) und ich bin von der Geschwindigkeit begeistert für eine HDD. Sie kommt nicht an eine SSD ran aber trotzdem recht flott :-) Für mich super! Da ich zu geizig bin für eine SSD und nicht soviel Wert auf Ladezeiten im Spiel lege ist sie perfekt für mich! Also es lohnt sich die knapp 60€ auszugeben und keine für 40-50€ zu kaufen. Ich erinnere daran das ich sie erst zwei Tage benutze! Sollte ich etwas negatives bemerken teile ich es sofort mit aber bis jetzt kann ich nur sagen: PC-Freunde, ihr könnt mit ruhigen Gewissen zugreifen!

Good

Cumple las funciones de manera correcta. Tiene 5 años de garantía fundamental. He comprado este disco mientras me tramitaban la garantía desde WD. Lo había comprado en 2012 y ahora tengo disco duro nuevo. Totalmente recomendable

I've had many makes of hard drive over the years but seem to migrate towards Western Digital as a preference. They are generally quiet and reliable, certainly I have never had one fail and indeed one I own is now a grand 9 years old and still going strong (obviously no sensitive data stored on it any more!) I replaced a "Blue Caviar" drive with this item which is the faster "Black". It features double the processing power on the built-in controller and is consequently much quicker to grab and write data. An added bonus is that it also runs more coolly. The previous "Blue" ran at an average 29-30c whereas the "Black" is running at about 26c. Over time too much heat kills electronics so this is good. In operation the drive is as quiet as the "Blue" and once up to operating speed can rarely be heard. My personal advice would be to use some kind of rubber washer mountings in your case just to insulate the drive further. It doesn't need it but will benefit from it. The only bad thing about this purchase was the packaging. It wasn't the lovely foam-padded box in the product photos. Mine came in an OEM cardboard box - no Amazon outer at all - held in place within the box by two rigid plastic inserts. Luckily the drive doesn't seem to have suffered but it caused me great concern when it arrived. I would happily pay just a little more for the Amazon card outer of old or for some of that foam.

Really good drive. Bought alongside a new SSD to use as my storage drive. I could have gotten away with a slower drive for my purpose but I prefer the best. Spend the extra few bucks if you go the HDD route and just get this, you won't regret it. It's lightning fast for a HDD and very quiet. To put it in comparison, it's lightening fast compared to the 6 year old Seagate HDD I just replaced (starting to slow down and die) ... but still nowhere near the speed of my new WD Blue SSD.